UB is Listening

Welcome to UBListens! This site is designed as a guide for
anyone at UB interested in designing and administering a
survey. Increasing survey response rates is becoming a larger
challenge at UB, so we suggest following these guidelines when
planning your assessments and research.

These guidelines are designed to help offices that need to
gather survey responses from students. Student email addresses
provide a convenient, low-cost way to inform students about on-line
surveys, but care needs to be taken to ensure that students are not
annoyed by inappropriate surveys or overwhelmed by the volume of
requests. In that spirit, the following guidelines are
suggested:

Check to see if the data is already collected for you!

Before designing a survey, make sure the data hasn’t
already been collected. This will save you time and eliminate a
survey needing to be administered. There are several places
to check

UB’s survey question bank (while in development access is
restricted to committee members only. Login with 'ad\'+UBITName)

Target Specific Student Populations:

Target surveys only to the relevant group of students.
Students are more likely to respond when they understand the
relevance and importance of the survey questions to them. In
addition, it is important to minimize the number of surveys that
any individual student might be asked to complete. If you need a
list of UB students in order to collect your data contact Assessment
and Evaluation in the Division of Student Life.

Sample only as many students as needed to ensure a
reasonable sampling error. This will also help control the
number of times students are asked to complete surveys. If you are
not sure about how larger your sample should be try using a sample
size calculator like this one: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm.

Keep the email message to students concise and clear.
Long email messages are ineffective and are often deleted without
being read.

Do not use students’ official email address for market
research or solicitation. Surveys designed to solicit student
participation in a service or to increase student use of a product
should not be administered. Student surveys should support the core
mission of the University.

Increase your response rates:

Check your timing. There is not a perfect time to
send a survey to students, but check the major surveys timeline
(insert link) to make sure you are not overlapping or completing
with larger surveys being conducted at UB.

Provide information in the email about the purpose of the
survey and the value to the student. Students have a right to a
clear description of the survey’s purpose, which should be
conveyed as part of the initial email message. Also, response rates
increase when a survey’s purpose and value are clearly
stated.

Make it clear to students that their participation is
optional. Students need to know that they are not required to
respond to campus surveys. Class assignments that require survey
participation are the only exceptions to this guideline. This
message should also be conveyed in the initial email message.

Apply for IRB approval early. If the
project is for internal use only, then IRB approval may not be
needed. If in doubt, check with UB’s
IRB office to determine if you need to go through their
process.

Ensure the confidentiality of student responses.
Students should be told that their responses are confidential and
will not be reported individually. Those reporting and sharing
results have an obligation to ensure that an individual student
cannot be identified in any reporting of survey results.

Clearly indicate contact information about the person and
office responsible for the survey. Students, as need to know
who is responsible for the survey. If students reply to their email
message, the responsible office should be the recipient.

Send a maximum of 2 follow-up email reminders to complete
the survey. We encourage limiting reminders to 1 but if 2 need
to be sent space them out at different days and times in order to
catch different people.

Survey Calendar

In addition, we are pleased to offer the newly created Survey
Calendar for survey activity at the University. With this
survey calendar, not only can members of the university community
see what surveys are happening at UB and when, but faculty, staff,
and students can register their surveys, allowing them to appear on
the calendar. This facilitates the survey
scheduling process and encourages collaboration on survey efforts,
potentially reducing “survey fatigue.”

Access to the Survey Calendar is available to all UB faculty and
staff. Simply login using your UBITName prefixed with 'ad\'
('ad\'+[UBITName] and password) .

About UB 2020

UB 2020 is our plan for enhancing educational opportunities for
our students, advancing research discoveries that improve life for
people throughout the world and increasing UB’s economic
impact on our region and New York State.